i want to be everything at once, but i do not want to be average

a letter to my parents, on the pursuit of being extraordinary

My mom often asks me: “how do you find your childhood? do you think we did a good job of being parents?”

I usually sit on questions like these for weeks before I find the words to string together, but this one in particular took slightly longer.

It also made me realize that parents rarely get to see the world through their children’s eyes. We grow up a generation apart, with different norms and different tools shaping who we become.

This blog is a culmination of whatever memories I can recall as a child over the years, and things I have processed over many wonderful conversations with my coach Clara.

childhood

Growing up, I remember taking a range of classes.

Oil painting, crafts, pottery, piano, violin. I loved performance arts: ballet, contemporary, street jazz. My mom also signed me up for extra math and science classes (we asian hehe).

I was also surrounded by people who chased things around the world.

My grandpa often spoke to me about business. About being an entrepreneur, and construction and real estate around the world. My grandma told me about running her own modeling school and beauty company, and still splits her time today between Australia and Malaysia to enjoy the seasons and see family.

My dad was an engineer by trade, but I’ll never forget the sparkle in his eyes when he talked about trading — the passion that eventually pulled him into a career as an independent trader. He was a voracious reader with an incredible eye for detail, and he remembered everything about the things he loved: sports, cars, all of it. Whatever caught his interest, he’d become an expert in almost overnight, and I would just sit there and listen to him yap about it for weeks on end. Some of my favourite memories include racing down the streets of Singapore in his lil red sports car, listening to him yap about how the stock markets work, playing Mario Kart & Gran Turismo, and of course, a ton of him rolling his eyes at how bad my math was.

My mom grew up a national athlete, had phenomenal taste in art and interior design, and found great success in her career in real estate, all while raising my sister and I. She’s still the strongest, most beautiful, fun and inspiring woman I know and I can only wish to be like her one day. Also, she has insane style, and to this day still buys me the most fashionable pieces of clothes. Some of my favourite memories are doing arts and crafts together, watching her cook, make everything she touches beautiful, playing dress up, dancing and taking photos of all sorts of random plants.

new york fashion week & other things

My parents have lived in a bunch of great cities (just as I have!) and the rest of my family is spread across multiple countries, with outstanding success in medicine, law, and entrepreneurship.

I also grew up in between two culturally different social groups. My early years were around kids of other expats in Singapore — African, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Japanese, and Aussie kids. And I attended local Singaporean schools, which gave me an incredibly strong foundation of lifelong friends and work ethic.

All of this is deeply personal. But looking back, the exposure to all these worlds made me curious about many things.

adult life

Living across so many cities also helped me develop my own sense of self and taste in things because I spent an incredible amount of time alone.

I spent an outsized amount of time thinking about life, am comfortable exploring places alone, and often find joy in the little things I see, taste and feel along the way.

i was constantly at war with myself

I wasted (in my opinion, cld be more efficient tbh) a lot of time trying to decide between a career in the creative world and one in tech.

I want a city life where I do 7 a.m. pilates, wear cute outfits, go on coffee runs, and sip a negroni at a sexy speakeasy after work. But I also want to live by the water, take slow walks and long drives through the middle of nowhere.

I want to push myself physically. To be healthy, strong, disciplined in my routine. But I also want to go dancing with my friends on friday nights.

I want to be surrounded by ambitious talent and build a phenomenal company. But I also want the freedom to create, slow down, and live a little whimsy life with a family and kids.

I want to be the woman who explores the world, and also the one who knows how to stay.

the great lock in

But at some point, you learn the truth buried in that old line: jack of all trades, master of none. I hold a lot of identities at once, but being extraordinary asks you to be hyper-focused on one.

In another life, I would have spent my twenties going all in on art, fashion, and photography.

But in this one, I’ve committed to being a startup founder in the relocation space. I’ve found this to be my life’s work, because of how important this mission (of helping a million people move to their dream city) is to me.

It’s given me room to be a creator in other ways too, to let that side of me out along the way. There have been struggles across the years, the cities, the occasional burnout from how intense this work can be.

But someone once said:

“do what makes you come alive”

There’s a creator I’ve followed for more than a decade who has, without knowing it, shaped a big part of how I live.

I used to spend hours after school watching Sam Kolder’s YouTube videos on loop, trying to recreate his transitions and the feeling of his travel films. I credit a lot of my early inspiration in photography and videography to him.

I made this saying mine, and every pursuit since has been driven by it.

I’ve run down every curiosity I’ve ever had, and I’m excited to keep doing that as I continue to grow older.

life is so rich

Perhaps growing up isn’t about trying to figure out what version of yourself you want to be, but rather living out all the various identities you have in this little lifetime.

I’m the entrepreneurial spirit of my grandpa, the poise of my grandma, the relentlessness of my dad chasing what he loved, the impeccable taste of my mom, and the range of experiences my friends have given me.

And I can do it all, just one at a time.

So, mom and dad — I’ve had a wonderful, exceptionally colorful childhood and wish I’ll be just as great parents as you are one day. Thank you for giving me the world. Love you ♥️